작품 상세

[Stellar Spectroscopy Plates, Large Collection] The collection of R. William Shaw (1904-1995), Cornell University, chairman of the Astronomy Department. Approximately 150 plates from the 1920s and 1930s, apparently acquired by Shaw during the early decades of his research. Several of the envelopes bear the name of R. W. Shaw. Includes G. F. Morgan's (photographer and proprietor of the Cornell U. gift-ship) negative of the Jan. 24, 1925 eclipse. From Shaw's obituary: "He participated in the Cornell Ultra-violet Star Light Expedition to the San Francisco Peaks. He and R. Williams hoped to test, through photographing stellar spectra, the relative efficiency of new evaporative coatings of an aluminum-chromium alloy for telescope mirrors. The expedition was a distinct success; their coating allowed for greater penetration into the ultra-violet compared with silver, and competed for a time with John Strong's techniques of pure evaporative aluminum." "Shaw was interested in spectroscopy, which was not his professor's strong field. Lark-Horowitz recommended that he go to Cornell to study molecular spectroscopy under R. C. Gibbs, and there he received his PhD in 1934 after he had been appointed an instructor in the Cornell Physics Department, teaching laboratory spectroscopy."